A man's thoughts while interning in the Netherlands and how he has grown or not when he returns home

01/26/2011

As a birthday gift to both of us Bridget and I went to Cancun for a week to celebrate and relax. Since I was away all summer we never truly got a beach vacation together. So this was our chance to enjoy what we missed. Some might say it is unfair as I had a chance to go to the beach at Barcelona and to a beach in the Netherlands. But those peoples opinions aren't important.

We found a nice all inclusive hotel called the Royal Cancun that had a good deal so we went to this all suites hotel and had a blast. Even though our everything that could go wrong on our flights down did including flights being delayed and having to be switched to other flights, more delays, lost luggage and our specific room not being available. We had a great time and were relaxed knowing somewhere warm awaited us.

The hotel was an all inclusive so all our food, drinks and pretty much anything else you can think of was included in the original cost we paid. It was nice not having to concern ourselves with carrying more than a couple of dollars for tips. Not having to bring anything but our keys with us. The trip was perfect. We just sat in a cabana every day went in the ocean at least once a day, and into the pool and hot tub multiple times. What a relaxing way to spend a week.

this was the sun rising on our first full day in Cancun, the view is from our balcony. For whatever reason I woke up early almost every day and was able to take in the sun rising at 6:30 am.

Here is a view of the pool from our balcony. The pool was long and narrow and ran the length of the hotel. Which was great as parts of the pool were loud and filled with activity while others like near where we sat everyday were quiet and peaceful.

Ah this warms me up just looking at it, this is the view we had from the cabana we spent our days at each day. it was great the pool was just a few steps behind us. The ocean and its amazing blue green color a few steps away. Really nothing could be better, well this setting combined with wait service really makes life perfect.

Here is a view of the hotel from the beach as the sun is setting.

This has become a bit of a tradition for us to put our initials in the sand on the beaches we are. Always close to the water line so only to have a brief time making our mark on the sand then to be washed away.

It was so great to be able to get away and enjoy a week of relaxation and fun. No worrying about work for Bridget, miles away from my looking for a job. And far from the cold. It was a great trip, and one that we enjoyed quite a bit.

When we returned to Boston we had pretty uneventful flights. But there was a fresh 8-10 inches of snow on the ground to greet us. And in the 5 days since we have been back there has been record cold temperatures, and another 6-8 inches of snow on the way tonight. But it was fun while it lasted.

So it has been a while since I have posted a blog. It is something I keep meaning to do, but since there hasn't been too many exciting things going on, I keep putting it off. Though some fun things have taken place since I last posted like:

I completed my MBA, which is why this blog came into existence in the first place. That was pretty exciting, I am pleased to be done. But sad that I will see less of my friends from school. Also as a result of completing school I need to find a job. So anyone hiring marketing people look no further than me.

Bridget and I had a great holiday trip to Alaska to see her family. We had a great time, though it was cold. But Alaska in the winter what else is there to expect.

That's a moose in Bridget's parents front yard. They are all over Alaska even in neighborhoods.

Alaska has some of the most beautiful landscape imaginable. Most of the scenery you pass just driving along the highway. You have to be careful when driving because the sights are so distracting. This was taken just as we drove to Alyeska which is a ski resort we went to for a night.

This was taken at the top of the mountain in Alyeska. This was just before we headed back to Anchorage. It had snowed about 6-8 inches that night so it was very tranquil, well minus all the skiers. Bridget, her sister and brother and I had a great time the night before just hanging out at the resort.

After this journey we headed back home with Cancun as our treat for our birthdays which will be my next post. Can't mix the hot and cold will be too confusing.

11/22/2010

This past Saturday I went to the Indiana football game, I had to show IU support after the demoralizing loss to that awful mean team that will remain unnamed that plays in the town Bridget was born. The game this week was being played in washington DC so I just went home for Thanksgiving a bit early and enjoyed a game with my friends who went to Penn State. The game was better than the week before, but really only about 2 games in the history of division I football were actually worse than the game IU lost the week before. So that really isn't saying much.

But many of my friends went to Penn State so we met up and went to the game and enjoyed catching up over some big ten football.

There i am at our tailgate enjoying a still legal can of fourloko. i won't get into a political debate over this stuff as it tastes pretty disgusting.

We had amazing seats, my friend scott bought about 20 tickets so a bunch of us could sit together, well actually his father did, but his father and mother were there as well as his wifes father and mother. it was a very nice day.

this game counted as a home game for IU it didn't feel that way I would guess there were no more than 2000 IU fans there. but we had fun and actually played well for a half this game instead of a quarter in that other game.

I also went to Indiana the week prior to watch an IU game with my friends from college, which was a great time. As school winds down I have had some time to do some traveling which has been great.

We went to a great tailgate at the IU game in bloomington and this was my absolutely favorite thing i saw.

This child is eating a brat, and perhaps drinking a beer, or at least has one, though he hasn't had any yet.

I am in DC now for thanksgiving with my parents and sister, and Bridget will be joining us soon. We are looking forward to relaxing and enjoying some delicious food. to everyone that reads my blog have a happy safe Thanksgiving.

11/01/2010

It has been a while since I wrote one of these blogs. Even though I am back in the U.S. most of the people that read this I don't have much daily interaction with so I thought why not start it back up? Give everyone a chance to enjoy some grammatically incoherent stories from my day to day life. If no one reads then well it is still no big deal.

Things have been good since I last blogged, I have been back in Boston living in our new awesome apartment with Bridget. We have been busy (her at work) me at school. I am graduating in December, the blog has been a pretty happy place so I won't get into the job search much. Just started really so it isn't an unhappy thing yet any ways.

This pas weekend was a good weekend. Saturday night I decided very last minute to go to a Halloween party at a friends house. Bridget helped me build my awesome bumble bee costume.

So i went to the Halloween store at 7 on Saturday night and bought tights which i tried to wear on my legs, that didn't work as if you look closely they are on my arms. some really nice socks, my antennae and my yellow shirt. i was pretty pleased with the costume. it was inexpensive and mildly funny.

Here i am with some friends from school.

It was a nice time.

I am going to try to keep the blog updated every week, hopefully enough interesting or fun things go on in my life.

08/22/2010

This should be my last post from the Netherlands. It is Sunday night in Eindhoven and my flight back to Boston is tomorrow. Although I am very excited to be back home with Bridget in our new apartment. I am also a bit torn, because although I don't really want to stay here that much longer I am somewhat sad to be leaving. I have grown very comfortable here in Eindhoven. It is a nice place and easy place to get into a rhythm to get comfortable and move forward. Maybe that is how I should know it is time for me to come home, as I have become comfortable and part of the challenge of this journey for me was to be uncomfortable, to take myself out of my comfort zone. No matter how I look at it, this experience was a success.

I was able to accomplish everything I set out to do here. And in the process I learned so much about myself, so much that will make me a better person, and a better employee and hopefully manager one day.

This last weekend I was able to see my friends and do some things I wanted to do before I left. On Friday I was able to go back to the pizza man, which was a great experience again and I had a great time yet again. Here are a few pictures from the evening:

me at the pizza making spot.

my friend Razvan is in the background making a pizza, and that is the infamous pizza man in the foreground.

This was my pizza, where last time we may not have put enough cheese on or at least that is what we thought when we put in in the oven, this time I didn't have that concern.

The pizza man was less crowded this time and we sat downstairs by the pizza oven. It is Gaby on the left, myself, Razvan and Alexey.

On Saturday I felt like I passed a test and became assimilated with the Dutch people. My friends Gaby Razvan and I decided to go to a music festival in a neighboring town called Best. The music festival called LakeDance was on the shores of a lake. It was 4 stages with with dj's performing at each. As for my acclimation well the event was about 10 kilometers from Eindhoven and instead of taking a bus there we decided to ride our bikes. It was about a 45 minute bike ride each way. The day was a really good time. Here are some pictures from the event.

we got there and did some relaxing after our long bike ride

this was the stage.

I was hesitant to go to this festival as I thought I may want to pack all day, but I thought that I would rather spend my last Saturday with my friends as I had all day Sunday to pack. I am very glad I made that decision, as I had a great time. It was a nice close to my summer here. As well my musical preferences although not totally changed have opened a bit to include a lot more music which was good as the festival did not feature music I really would have enjoyed before my trip to Europe.

After we returned from the music festival we went to my house to have some food then biked about 3+ kilometers to a party. All in all we biked over 26 kilometers (over 16 miles) on Saturday. By far the most I have biked in quite a while in one day. I feel like I am Dutch now.

Now it is time to come home. Thanks for following me on here, I hope you enjoyed experiencing my journey with me. I have not decided what I will do with the blog when I return perhaps I will write about my transition back to normalcy so check back.

08/20/2010

My last day of work has arrived. I am sitting at my computer getting ready to say goodbye to Philips Design in Eindhoven forever (most likely). Yesterday I handed in my recommendations for my project and said good bye to my colleagues. Today I came in to see that everyone was working from home except for the interns. The way I will remember the office is the way it was every Friday this summer, very quiet. I actually got a lot of work done today. Not that I had a lot to do for Philips as I was pretty much done. But I was able to get a lot of work for school done. As I have a lot of deliverables due upon my arrival back in Boston.

This entire week I am trying to "celebrate" my final time in Eindhoven by going out with my friends and being as active as possible. Last night was no exception. As I went to my colleague and friend Maarten's house for dinner. Earlier in the summer he cooked me traditional Dutch food. Last night we had more of a traditional Mexican food with burritos which I was very happy to have. After dinner he, his girlfriend his roommate and I went out for some drinks. My only regret that Maarten also expressed was that we actually never went out for drinks over the summer. I guess we had sat outside in the square a few times but rarely. We always got along well at work and outside but just didn't drink much together. Which was too bad as we enjoyed the night a lot.

This is a picture of Peter (Maarten's roommate) myself and Linda (Maarten's girlfriend) from the bar we spent most of the night at.

This is Peter again, Maarten and Linda

This is a great means of travel in the Netherlands, when not riding their bikes people seem to end up on my back. As Maarten did on our way from the bar last night.

We had a nice time and at some point some other friends of mine from work came out, so I got to see a good amount of people. Tonight I am meeting a few people and going back to the pizza man as the weather is just perfect for it today. Not a cloud in the sky. A great way to remember Eindhoven. Not that I am leaving today but on Monday I will be returning home.

08/19/2010

Originally I was going to stay here in Eindhoven until the 30th of August, but as time went on and I found out my boss was not going to be in the office my entire last week, and my deliverable would be due to him on the 20th of August. I decided to push forward my return date. So I will be returning to the U.S. on the 23rd. I am fully engrossed in my last week of my internship. Instead of presenting my recommendations to my boss on Friday I am actually giving my recommendations today (Thursday).

I feel pretty ready for that, over the past few weeks I have put together a paper with my recommendations. And today I am putting together a high line power point presentation that hits the main points so I can go over that with him.

It really feels crazy that the summer is coming to an end and more so that I will be leaving Eindhoven and my friends here so soon. It really feels like just yesterday that I got here all nervous, anxious and excited. I have no regrets about the 3 months that followed my arrival, I did about everything I wanted to and more. I hoped I would enjoy my internship, travel some in in Europe and hopefully make some friends.

I definitely enjoyed the internship, it was a great opportunity and one I am very grateful to the people of Philips for giving me this great chance to join their community even just for the summer.

The traveling was great. I had hoped to see a few places in Europe as I am not a very experienced traveler outside of the U.S. & Caribbean. So to have an opportunity to go from not having been anywhere in Europe before May to having been to: London, Paris, Brussels, Brugge, Barcelona, Amsterdam, and various smaller cities and villages. What a great experience this has been. It has really opened my eyes about the world and people from all over the world.

I did make friends lots of them way more than I ever expected. I am not a shy person and I make friends pretty easily but the social experience that I had here in the Netherlands far exceeded anything I could have imagined. I have been taking some pictures over the course of the past few days to try to keep track of what a normal week was like here in Eindhoven. So here is where I share those pictures:

This is a bar we go to on Tuesdays it is called Le Baron, they have quite a lot of Belgian beers. Most of them quite good, and unlike bars in the U.S. that have a wide variety of beers these are all relatively inexpensive. Even the larger 750ml fine beers are no more than 10 euro and you get about 4 glasses in those big bottles.

This is another bar we sometimes go to for the fine Belgian beers. This place is called the Bier Professor, and like Le Baron, the prices are pretty cheap and the beers are very good.

Some friends and I went to enjoy the beers at Bier Professor on Tuesday night. The beer Hopus I was drinking is very hoppy and they give you the glass and a shot glass, and after you have poured your beer into the glass you swirl the remaining contents in the bottle around and pour the last bits into a shot glass and take a shot of the hops at the bottom then enjoy the beer.

This was the final beer I had on Tuesday night, the bar tender said it was the best beer they had at the Bier Professor. Trappistes Rochefort, it was quite nice. About 5 euros so about $6 for a really good beer. It was I believe 10 or 11% alcohol so quite strong.

This is my friend Juliette and I, I am wearing someones glasses, I think they look pretty nice on me, though I still prefer to not have to wear glasses.

Last night I went to a bbq on the rooftop of some people that work with me. It was nice to barbecue as I haven't really taken part in one this entire summer, which feels wrong in almost every way.

This is Razvan diligently working the grill. Lots of sausage, some hamburgers and chicken. Maybe some steak on there too.

This night we are drinking the finest cheap Dutch beer Bavaria. The Budweiser or Miller Lite of the Netherlands, but far superior to those beers in taste, and quality. Only similarity is price, a 6 pack is around 3 euros at the store for this low cost beer.

This is what happens when you drink beer, you allow yourself to be photographed doing a traditional dance in a bar where there is no music.

I plan to take some more pictures this week and will probably post at least one more time with my final weekend and maybe if the weather stays nice a final trip to the Pizza Man.

08/17/2010

I spent last weekend on my final journey of my trip to Europe. It was my furthest trip from Eindhoven and it turned out to be my favorite place I have been in Europe. Though I know there is still plenty of Europe I would like to see, I have now been to a few places and can say that Barcelona is my favorite of them. It is the mix of beautiful architecture, nice climate, museums and sights, beaches, food and night life. Barcelona has everything I could want in a city.

I traveled to Barcelona with a colleague at Philips Gaby. We both wanted to go on a trip somewhere with a beach, and Barcelona was high on our list of places we wanted to go to. So it worked out for both of us. This was a place I have expressed an interest in going to since getting to the Netherlands, so I am pleased it was my last stop.

Unfortunately we only were there for 3 days but I enjoyed it a lot and hope to go back in the near future with Bridget. As I am certain she will like it there as well.

We got there on Friday and the weather wasn't great, though we had seen some weather reports calling for rain all weekend so the fact it was just cloudy was welcome. We walked around and did a double-decker bus tour of the city. Stopping at a few places to walk around and see different neighborhoods.

We also went to a museum on Montjuic which had amazing views of the city and plaza Espanya. Unfortunately the fountains that all around were not turned on, which I could see would have made it even more impressive.

this is the museo at the top of Monjuic. Montjuic is named as Jewish Mountain there is an old Jewish cemetery here on Montjuic, which I did not see.

After the tour we walked around the harbor area a bit and Las Ramblas. We then went into a market that had some great things like meats, fish, delicious fresh fruits and pretty much anything someone could want. I wish I had more time so I could have bought some things but we weren't cooking on this trip. But we did have some good fruit smoothies there.

That evening it began to rain and we went to dinner and sat outside under an umbrella and had some tapas and sangria.

Luckily Saturday morning when we got up the clouds were gone and it was a beautiful day. We went to the beach that day and walked around the city a bit to get to the beach, but when we arrived it was all worth it. What beautiful beaches they have and how warm the sea was. It was my first time in the Mediterranean Sea, and hopefully not my last as it was just great.

The day was great, although it was somewhat annoying as people constantly were trying to sell things on the beach and would stand over you until you said no. But on the other hand it was also nice to have a mojito made for us without having to get up. It was good and cheap too. As well we both got massages that lasted between 15-20 minutes for 5 euros. So I guess I can't complain too much. It was truly a great day at the beach.

The beach with the W hotel off in the distance.

this was the view from my towel, not much to complain about here.

That afternoon we went to meet with a couple of people Gaby knew. We left the touristy parts of town and went to meet her friends to walk through some neighborhoods that were about to have a festival. The festival didn't actually start until the next day but a lot of the decorations were up already so we could walk through without all the crowds. It appears the theme of the decorations had to do with recycling and reusing things.

This was all wooden pallets and bottles

Bottles, and plastic fences

Gaby on the left and her friend Susana on the right in front of bottles made into a decoration.

Then we went to dinner at a more traditional Spanish restaurant. It was delicious. We shared a bunch of plates of different things. I tried everything though had I known the rabbit was rabbit and not chicken, I may not have tried it, but it really just tasted like chicken. We had great Sangria there.

A great plate of meats to start the meal.

The rabbit is the one on the bottom left of the plate, it wasn't bad at all, just didn't realize it was rabbit. I even tried the sausage which I don't usually eat. I didn't love this either but thought it tasted better than sausage I have tried before.

We also had a plate of grilled vegetables, bread with something baked into it, a cheese plate and an amazing salad with goat cheese I can't stop thinking about. We then went to a nearby bar that was not touristy at all either and listened to some live music and had more great sangria.

Sunday was not really beach weather either plus we wouldn't have an opportunity to shower as we had to check out of the hotel. So we decided to go to park Guell. It is a park on a mountain overlooking the city that has a mosaic tiled iguana as well as a lot of Gaudi architecture.

These are a couple of bridges around the area as you can see it is very lush and tropical there, and the views of the city were amazing.

the view from the park

This is where the lizard is. The lizard is very popular.

I don't know those people.

Here I am sitting in a cave in one of the bridges

There was also some really cool architecture in the buildings there.

Here I am sitting in front of it all. It reminds me of Candy land, though sadly it wasn't made of candy.

We only stayed there for about 2 hours, but you could easily spend an entire day walking around the paths and looking out onto the city. It was somewhere I wasn't actually that interested in seeing but I am really glad I did, as I loved it.

These mosaic tiles were on the ceiling of a big cavernous area held up by large columns. The ceiling was the floor to the large landing where people stood to look out onto the city.

There were musicians performing and other people there selling their wares. It was a very nice place to visit.

I am very eager to have an opportunity to go back to Barcelona, because there is so much more I want to explore. Hopefully Bridget and I will have an opportunity to go there and spend some more time.

Now I am back in Eindhoven. For my last week of work. I can't believe it will have been 3 months and it is all over. This has been a truly inspiring summer.

08/09/2010

I went to Brussels for the weekend. It is only about a 2.5 hour train ride away from Eindhoven so it was a pretty easy trip. Went Friday after work with a colleague from Philips. Belgium although not somewhere I thought too much about before coming to the Netherlands, it is somewhere I would be interested to spend some more time in. The buildings and cities were very historic and beautiful.

These pictures were of Grand Place, which is a historic square in Brussels. I read before I went that is considered one of the most beautiful squares in the world. After being there, I can understand why, it truly is a remarkably beautiful square. The architecture and style of buildings were just amazing.

Brussels was filled with great sites, and we did a quick tour of the city before we left on Sunday.

As you can see in these pictures the weather was very hit and miss, it was sunny some moments than 20 minutes later it was raining on us. Luckily we had some rain coats and were able to stay dry for the most part at least in Brussels.

On Saturday we had done a tour that took us to Brugge. I can't say enough good things about Brugge, it was such a beautiful city. Unfortunately it rained very hard the entire time we were in Brugge. But if you are in the parts of Europe I highly recommend going to Brugge. It is worth the trip, it is such an old town with quite a lot of well preserved history. Oh and if you like chocolate you will love Brugge as it must be the chocolate capital of the world, I have never seen more chocolate shops on any street. It is like the way there are Starbucks in any major metro area in the U.S. Chocolate shops on every corner if not lined up next to each other. Stores that make their own chocolate. It was very nice. There are also over 400 pubs in Brugge while only 20,000 full time residents within the center of the city. So quite a lot of different thigns to do there.

Here are a couple of pictures from Brugge:

This is the only Madonna by Michaelangelo that is outside of Italy

the tower outside the central square in Brugge

Brugge has tons of little canals and at least in Brugge they consider themselves the little Venice. It is a really nice town. Very small, we took a nice canal boat tour that was very interesting. I would really like to go back there and see more of the city.

Here are some other random pictures of things I enjoyed in Belgium:

In general the food was pretty good, as I stated by the title Belgian waffles are great, really much different and better than what we associate with them in the U.S. But this just didn't sound too good. I also believe the 8 may be upside down, but that seems to be the least of their concerns on this one.

This seemed like an interesting place.

The hairstyles in Brussels were great. I think that is the back of MacGyver's head.

Internship ends in about 2 weeks. I am off to Barcelona on Friday so should have some new pictures for that.

08/02/2010

This week marks the beginning of the end for my internship here in the Netherlands at Philips. I guess one could say the end was the next milestone after the beginning, but the time has gone by very fast. It seems like just yesterday I was learning my way around Eindhoven and my office at Philips. I found some directions I had printed the first week I was here to get to a bar to meet some people after work. It is so easy to get to, I can't believe I had to print directions. But I also remember I got lost going there the first time and it took me 25 minutes to get there when now I can get there in about 10. Now I can't say I have mastered either Eindhoven or Philips, but I do feel I have come a long way from that day over two months ago.

August is a strange time in this part of Holland as all the schools are on holiday and as a result many people take this time off from work to spend time with their families or get away. As a result at least half of my office is away. The woman who sat next to me (Jeanne) helped me in every way here. She is off for the entire month of August, so we had our goodbye on Friday.

This is a drawing of the two of us, that sits behind my desk. My colleague drew it one afternoon, and we hung it up as we thought it was very funny.

With her at least half of our office appears to be off for the rest of the month if not at least part of the month.

Here is a picture of me at my desk. I eat a lot of Clementines and other fruit in Boston, here I have been enjoying the market on Tuesdays by my office that I get 30 Mandarins & Clementines for 3.50 Euros. I started stacking them in a pyramid and people started coming by my desk to ask about them. I had been buying the same number all summer but it wasn't until I stacked up like this that people started to notice. Marketing at its' best (too bad I am not selling them). I do eat all of them each week and share them with my coworkers who share things like cherries as we were eating that day. You can also see the bear that someone placed on my computer and the drawing that is behind me.

I also need to focus myself on finishing on my deliverables for Philips. Which will consist of making recommendations on avenues to pursue for the marketing of the product I have been working on. As well I want to ensure that all the research I did while I was here is easily accessible for the team that is working on my product in case they need any information. The above picture was from a meeting we had last week with members of the team working on the product I am on, to come up with guidelines and time tables for deliverables.

Formulating my final deliverable has been more challenging than I had hoped as I am distracted with the reality that the summer is ending and I will be leaving Eindhoven for the foreseeable future, if not forever. I have to think about whether I have done all the things I have set out to do, and figure out what things I can still accomplish that I haven't yet. It is also more about people and friends I have made. The internship isn't over yet, but it feels like the end is very close. I need to do my best to enjoy the time I have with my friends here as much as possible. Because Philips is so large and their are so many interns here each month marks the beginning and end for people. So each month we have to say good bye to friends, but we meet new people. I guess it prepares us all for when our internship will be over.

Not to sound so dreary as I am very excited to see my friends in Boston and be back at school. Just this adventure is coming to end far quicker than I ever could have imagined.

There is excitement on the horizon though. I am planning to go to Prague or Brussels this weekend and have a trip booked for Barcelona the following weekend. So my goal of traveling and seeing as much of Europe as possible is being realized.